Five Things Mac Loves About Stella
by The Atomic Cafe
Summary: Five things Mac loves about Stella that no other woman has. Based off of season three spoilers. Nominee for the CSI Fanfic Awards 2006.


**Five Things Mac Loves About Stella**

**By Dimgwrthien**

_Disclaimer: I do not own CSI: NY or affiliates._

_Based off of season three spoilers._

_The Greek_

Peyton was young. With youth came curiosity. And with curiosity came the questions Mac never enjoyed.

She gave him a curious look from those almond eyes that he found so appealing. They were… wolvish, he figured, but something about them was strange. Almost mischievous or elfin. She didn't need to talk whenever she used those eyes that had more expression than most words.

"What's your wife like?" she asked him, repeating her question.

Mac couldn't stand the bar. It was too noisy, too impersonal to talk about things. "Was," he answered simply.

Another curious look.

"She died a few years ago." He kept his words short and trite, trying his best to let her know that he didn't want to bring Claire into any conversation. It was supposed to be a friendly after-work drink, not a therapy session.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she looked it. Mac hated hearing people apologize for her death. "How did it happen?"

Two damn planes flew into the building she happened to have a meeting in that day. "September eleventh." Another short answer. Another answer he didn't want to say.

She bit her lip and reached across the table, touching his hand. He hated people trying physical comfort. There wasn't any effective physical comfort since then except feeling Claire against him. Peyton's hands were too long to be Claire's, and the nails were too long. Claire's skin had been smooth with its rough patches from the way she held her pencils and paint brushes. "I'm so sorry," she repeated.

-

Mac stood in the chilly air under the trees, glancing down at the ground. Most of the grass had died from the September air and the constant digging in the graveyard. He hated being on this side of the church, the one where the dead walked the earth, but he couldn't tear himself away. It had only been a week and the pain hadn't ebbed away in the slightest. He shivered slightly, not from the cold that he had blocked out with the heavy jacket, but from fear. Fear of what had happened. How things would change. What to do next. It seemed too pointless.

The rain started slowly, picking up speed.

"Mac?"

He didn't turn. It was Stella's voice and her gentle steps as she neared him. Mac felt droplets of water hit his face and he almost wished that they were tears. He knew that there was something wrong with him for not being able to cry.

A hand touched his shoulder and the rain seemed to stop. Mac still saw the rain hit the raw gravestone, trailing down the words of her name. Stella's bright blue umbrella shaded them from the rain, and she leaned in close. Her breath hit his neck in a reassuring way, warming him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, still holding the umbrella in place.

"It's alright, Mac." She breathed heavily and sounded a bit hoarse. He knew that she had been the one crying. And he still couldn't. "_Chalepa ta kala._" She slipped into her own language, a whispered Greek. He didn't know what she said, but it seemed to hit something in him better than any English words could.

Mac cried.

-

The Fighting

Peyton never said a word against Mac. She held him in a reverence that he only ever saw from his new lab workers. Even though they had been dating for months, she still looked up to him. It made him feel like her father sometimes. Sometimes it just made him feel more important, something to be proud of.

"Why didn't you just put the horse down?" she asked, referring to an old case that had come up as she looked around some of the old records Mac still had sitting around his office. She stood over the drawer it was in, the file opened in front of her. Peyton's original mission was to help Mac move the files around for dates, but she seemed more interested in seeing what he had done in his years there. Mac didn't have the heart to tell her that she wasn't supposed to be looking at them.

"It had been given to the police department by an officer's widow and daughter." He picked up a case, saw the date from three months before, and put it in one of the boxes with others from that month. "I didn't want to kill their gift."

"Still evidence," she said, glancing at him, then closing the case.

That's what Stella said, Mac almost told her. "I couldn't bring myself to kill it before they said goodbye."

Peyton smiled at him. "You're such a sweet person. That was good of you. Saying goodbye is always the best gift, right?"

That's all? Mac wondered. A quick agreement. No argument. As if she understood the full meaning of a goodbye. Goodbye wasn't something you just said to a friend that you wouldn't see for a month.

-

Stella sat across from Mac in the lab, but her look seemed to hover over his shoulder. Every time she looked up from her microscope, she glanced at him, eyes slightly narrowed.

Mac kept the 3-D replica of the bullet next to him, trying to understand the slightly flattened tip of it. There wasn't much to do without the strata.

"The horse may have lived the operation," Stella told him, keeping her voice rather low. "It would give us evidence."

Mac didn't answer. Stella didn't need to hear any of his arguments. She would just give him that same look, over and over again until her eyes stayed that way.

"You're not going to get far with that," Stella muttered. "No strata. No evidence."

Just out of spite, Mac put the bullet under the microscope, looking at a smooth surface.

-

The Curls

Mac sat in bed, staring sideways so that he could see Peyton's profile. She had a small smile on her face as she turned slightly to face him. "I love you," she whispered so quietly that she may have mouthed it.

He smiled back at her. Her eyes slipped closed and she turned again, about to fall asleep. Mac looked at the back of her head, seeing the loose brown hair. It spread over the pillow, fanning around her cheeks. It was perfectly straight, almost refusing to bend around the contours of the pillow. Her hair looked the most beautiful when it was pulled back in a ponytail. He liked watching her in the lab for that, just to see it swing back and forth as she walked.

-

Stella had curls. Curls didn't even begin to describe her hair. Mac had always loved curls because of Claire. She had loose, blonde curls that fluttered around her face. Stella's hair was like a corkscrew, all of the curls bouncing around her face, framing her tanned skin and bone structure. Mac always wanted to just see what would happen if he unraveled one around his finger and let it spring back. Would it have bounced slowly into place? Would it have gone back to its shape and not moved? Would it have stayed unraveled? Would it have even unraveled in the first place?

-

The Cannoli

Peyton liked to show Mac that she knew how to cook. She rarely went out to a restaurant with him, and invited him over to her apartment too often. Her favorite thing to make for him - cannoli. She would leave the ricotta on a cheesecloth in the fridge most of the day, making a show of telling him how much longer until it had drained enough to cook with. Then she'd put it into a big bowl, adding in the cinnamon and confectioners sugar slowly, mixing them and running him through the instructions each time. Then, as she mixed in the chocolate chips and put the mix into the shells, she'd pause, picking up the spoon and either licking it or letting Mac.

Mac always enjoyed cannoli, of course.

-

Stella laughed when she and Mac passed by the stand at the Fair with the cannoli. She bought two of them, taking them from the salesman and handing one of the paper holders to Mac. "You owe me," she told him, still smiling. "You can get pizza next time."

Mac smiled back. "Sure. But only if you get more of these after this." He raised his bitten cannoli.

"That's the nice thing about crime scenes in nice places - this is 'work' even though the killer is gone." Her smile was proud and joking. "You just can't find cannoli like this."

And no one could.

-

Being Stella

Peyton liked things differently than Mac. They enjoyed the same things, but their reasons never seemed to mix.

Mac spent the night up late, trying to finish up a report on a recent case. He didn't type much, but sat there, staring at the files and notes.

Peyton watched him for a long time. "Are you coming to bed? You're just staring at it."

Shaking slightly to stop himself from concentrating on the case, Mac answered, "I'm just not sure I understand this. The confession was completely undue. What made him turn himself in?"

"You solved it." Peyton shrugged. "Isn't that enough for the record?"

Mac nodded. "Enough for the record. Not enough for me. What if he was covering for someone?"

"Who would risk that much to cover for someone? Let's just get to bed."

"No." Mac tapped the file. "I'm sorry, but I can't sleep if this is here."

Peyton raised an eyebrow. Mac rubbed his temples and wanted to give her the same mischievous smile back, but couldn't.

-

Stella understood Mac. She could read every change in is expression, know when she spoke too much, know when Mac didn't want to talk.

She pulled one of the chairs around Mac's desk, sitting down next to him, looking at what he had written into the record. "It doesn't make sense," she told him. "Why would he confess?"

Mac nodded. "That's the point I was trying to make last night. There's no chance of us getting him there. No trace on the weapon or body. Unusual. Amazing killing. I hate to say it, but I would just leave and never look back.

Stella shrugged. "Cover up?"

"I think so."

"Let's get to it."


End file.
